You may know Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant as comedians extraordinaire from “The State” and “Reno 911,” but they have also written many of the big blockbuster movies of the last decade. They even detailed their Hollywood experiences in a screenwriting book Writing Movies for Fun and Profit. Their next big blockbuster is feature film version of the hit ‘90s syndicated TV series “Baywatch.” While we spoke about their latest film Hell Baby, now available on VOD and in theaters in September, they told me the film version even has its own subtitle to indicate the launch of a franchise.
“Script is done,” Lennon said. “Script is one of my favorite scripts of ours I would say. It’s called Baywatch: Red Tide, with the implication being that we’re going to make six or eight or 10 of these Baywatch films is the plan. It seems to be going full speed ahead at Paramount.”
“Baywatch” starred David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson as lifeguards. Those actors have never seemed opposed to playing themselves in movies, so one would assume they’d want to cameo as their “Baywatch” characters. Neither Hasselhoff nor Anderson are officially signed, but Lennon confirmed their script left provisions for them. I.e. they wrote a scene so the words are there if Anderson and Hasselhoff choose to speak them.
“As soon as we talk about this, this will make front page news so we’ll say there certainly are roles for them,” Lennon said. “I won’t say that they’re necessarily starring in the film but also would certainly say that they’re in it. At least in the drafts we have written. Sometimes these things get taken out of context so I’d like to say clearly, that’s a big question for Paramount but in the last draft that we turned in, certainly they appear.”
I myself mistakenly assumed the “State” guys were doing a comedy version of Baywatch. They set me straight that they are doing the serious hardcore version of Bawatch, or at least as serious as “Baywatch” itself was.
“It’s an action comedy,” Garant said. “Heavier on action.”
As the resident experts on “Baywatch,” Lennon and Garant said there was plenty of comedy in “Baywatch” already. They don’t need to add more.
“It’s as funny as the real ‘Baywatch,’” Lennon said. “‘Baywatch’ itself was funny. They know. They know that it’s also funny. Also it’s fun to watch Baywatch because every woman enters a scene and the camera dips down her entire body. You’ll see. Almost as if they’re scanning her.”
Hopefully whoever directs Baywatch: Red Tide will take Lennon and Garant’s notes about how to apply the “Baywatch” camera to the stars. “Down to her knees and back up, and then she talks,” Garant said. “Women enter, there’s a pause for the camera to check them out, and then we go back to her face and she says, “Trouble in tower seven!”
And it’s not just the babes. “They do it with the dudes sometimes,” Lennon said. “If a real packed dude walks in, they’ll dip down. There’s a lot of wieners in the original Baywatch.”
“There’s as much beefcake as cheesecake,” Garant said.
We’ll be back with more news on Baywatch: Red Tide after we save an escape artist from drowning after he loses his key. That’s literally the only episode of “Baywatch” I ever saw.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Shelf Space Weekly. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
